I don't think this will be a problem.
See my post on the bottom of page 7.
You know how many home game you will have and you allocate dates and book stadiums accordingly and slot opponents names in at a later date.

No you won't. You won't know until the last week whether you have three or four home games, or which teams are in your group and what their situation is.
Just imagine if Wigan, Huddersfield, Hull, Salford and Leeds are in the same group and their football/Union teams are all at home on the same weekend(s)

The split will only come after the football season has started, and well after their and Unions fixtures are published.

The spectators (and clubs) will only not know how many home games they will have if they go into the final fixture of the first league phase still battling for a top four spot (or 8th place in the second 12). In the first and third 8s the four highest placed teams get 4 home games, in the middle eight the four Championship teams get 4 home games. It's explained in the documents that put forward the format.

As I already mentioned earlier in this thread the plan for the format involves a Challenge Cup round (possibly even two rounds) taking place between the two league phases so no four day turnaround to be worried about.

The fixture issue is simple, by using a set format, fixtures in the second league phase are laid out for teams labelled as 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7 and 8 at the same time as the initial fixtures are compiled giving 1, 2, 3 and 4 the 4 home games each. Exactly who a specific team plays, where they play them and when is then determined by the order in which teams finish in the first league phase. It is a similar principle to the one by which World Cup knockout phases are organised. All that is then left to do is make tweaks where for example the Hull clubs might be at home on the same weekend. Easy to do such tinkering while the cup games are taking place, it happens for tv on a regular basis.

Clubs with shared facilities would have to fit in games around pre-existing fixtures in other codes as they would have to with cup games. In the case of Salford they would have priority rather than Sale as it would be at the end of the RL season and the beginning of the RU season and each club in that stadium has priority of use at the business end of their respective seasons.

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Have sky been consulted about the restructure? The current deal runs until the end of 2015. It seems a strange way to treat your broadcasting partner(s).

Example; after the 8/8/8 split who owns the tv rights to the second group of 8? Is it Sky or Premier Sports? Super League clubs playing Championship clubs.

Wouldn't it have made sense to leave the restructure until the end of the current deal and renegotiate on the basis of presenting a new competition?

Also on another point - more games with fewer teams in the top tier means more games involving the top clubs. As has already been stated we could play Saints twice in the regular season once in the MW once in the cup then once after the split and then twice in the playoffs. That goes also for other fixtures. There is such a thing as overkill. Playing Saints Leeds Wire and Huddersfield 4 or 5 times a season just devalues those games. Any loss can be avenged in a few weeks thus affecting the intensity. My belief is that such familiarity will drive down standards not raise them. The great thing about the derby is that you look forward to it. Playing Saints five or six times negates that.

Proof; look at the playoff attendance at Wigan in 2011 against Saints.

Actually, there's a shed load of stuff that's gone wrong over the last few years and I'd put Wakey's & Cas's problems down to simple mismanagement & poor book-keeping. The licensing principle has it's problems, but it's not to blame for everything you cite here, in fact you go a long way to bolstering my point via your "criminally wasted it" bit. I agree that they have wasted the opportunity but that cannot be put at the door of licensing.

The new system can work if there's more money from the broadcasters - perhaps they're hoping BT will wade in & start a bidding war - both tiers have to have similar amounts of cash or there's no point & the split to three groups becomes as meaningful as the stupid Club Call in the current play-offs & we can probably all have a good stab at which teams will be in which groups 5 years ahead.

it all sounds complicated to me. Am i missing something here?

12 team league = 22 fixtures, plus 1 if magic continues, thats 4 less than before, which means 4 more free weekends?
Start the season later, like early March ( it is summer rugby? ) , and go back to top 5.
Promotion/ relegation goes without saying..its a competitive sport, lets bring back the competitiveness/uncertainty, that P and R bring.

What an absolute load of tosh served up again by the RFL. I'm sure they go out of their way to make it as complicated as possible to justify their job roles. It's like the card game 'Go Johnny go, go, go, go' from 'League of Gentlemen' sketch.

Why not just go to 12 teams, top 5 play offs with the winner having a week off, 2v5, 3v4 then the week after the winner plays the lowest ranked winning side and if they win go to the GF along with the winner of the other game.

Winner of the Championship goes up automatically, no play offs.

Also bring back GB and proper tours.

That's a good point about the tv rights particularly for the middle 8 as it will affect the first season at least. You would hope that the RFL were speaking to both Sky and PS about that issue.

Re repeat fixtures you can't play anyone twice in the playoffs under the new structure as there are only semi finals and a grand final. Play a team once in the playoffs and one team is in the final and the other is out. You could play the same team six times (twice in first phase, once at MW, once in second phase, once in playoffs and once in cup) but that can also happen now (twice in league, once at MW, twice in playoffs and once in cup). While having 3 or 4 league fixtures may be a problem to market if fans aren't going to attend a playoff semi or GF or a knockout cup game then that is probably more to do with the fan themselves (interest in particular comp/ability or willingness to pay for outside of ST games) rather than the number of times the opponent has been faced already.

The more I read and understand the better it sounds to me.